ARVN Airborne Repell Vietcong Attack, Saigon, South Vietnam (1968)
The Army of the Republic of
Viet Nam -
ARVN (
Vietnamese: Quân Lực
Việt Nam Cộng Hòa - QLVNCH), sometimes referred to as the
South Vietnamese Army (
SVA), was the
Ground Forces branch of the
Republic of Vietnam's
Military Forces, the official military of the Republic of Vietnam (
South Vietnam) which existed from
1955 until the fall of
Saigon in
1975. It is estimated to have suffered 1,394,
000 casualties (killed and wounded) during the
Vietnam War.
After the fall of Saigon to the invading
North Vietnamese Army (
NVA), the ARVN was dissolved. While some high-ranking officers had fled the country to the
United States or elsewhere, thousands of former ARVN officers were sent to reeducation camps by the communist government of the new, unified
Socialist Republic of Vietnam.
On
October 26, 1955, the military was reorganized by the administration of
President Ngo Dinh Diem who then formally established the
Army of the Republic of
Vietnam (ARVN) in
December 30, 1955. The air force was known as the
Vietnamese Air Force (
VNAF).
Early on, the focus of the army was the guerrilla fighters of the
Vietnam National Liberation Front (
NLF, also known as the
Viet Cong (VC)), formed to oppose the Diem administration.
The United States, under
President John F. Kennedy sent advisors and a great deal of financial support to aid the ARVN in combating the insurgents.
A major campaign, developed by
Ngo Dinh Nhu and later resurrected under another name was the "
Strategic Hamlet Program" which was regarded as unsuccessful by
Western media because it was "inhumane" to move villagers from the countryside to fortified villages. ARVN leaders and
President Diem were criticized by the foreign press when the troops were used to crush armed anti-government religious groups like the
Cao Dai and Hoa Hao as well as to raid
Buddhist temples, which according to Diem, were harboring NLF guerrillas. This most notably occurred on the night of August 21,
1963, during the
Xa Loi Pagoda raids conducted by the
Special Forces, which caused a death toll estimated to range into the hundreds.
In 1963 Ngo Dinh Diem was killed in a coup d'état carried out by ARVN officers and encouraged by US officials such as
Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. In the confusion that followed,
General Duong Van Minh took control, but he was only the first in a succession of ARVN generals to assume the presidency of South Vietnam. During these years, the United States began taking more control of the war against the NLF and the role of the ARVN became less and less significant. They were also plagued by continuing problems of severe corruption amongst the officer corps. Although the
U.S. was highly critical, the ARVN continued to be entirely U.S. armed and funded.
Although
the US media has often portrayed the Vietnam War as an exclusively
American vs. Vietnamese conflict, the ARVN carried the brunt of the fight before and after large-scale US involvement, and participated in many major operations with
American troops. ARVN troops pioneered the use of the
M113 armored personnel carrier as an infantry fighting vehicle by fighting mounted rather than as a "battle taxi" as originally designed, and the armored cavalry (ACAV) modifications were adopted based on ARVN experience. One notable ARVN unit equipped with
M113 armored personnel carriers (
APCs), the
3d Armored Cavalry Squadron, used the new tactic so proficiently and with such extraordinary heroism against hostile forces that they earned the
United States Presidential Unit Citation. An estimated 224,000
South Vietnamese troops died, while more than 58,000 U.S. troops died during the war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ARVN